AJD

.... Piracy and Valor are fantastic. Seek them out. GOD BLESS... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) Of the two, I'd say Piracy is the consistently better read. I was pleasantly surprised to find some non-swords and arrrr stories in there. There's a U-boat story in #3 that I especially like.

I found that one tough too. Mine is a "F/VF" from a heritage auction. (Yeah, right - fine at best.)

I'll give you a six-pack for it! Name your poison RM.

Aurora. Not super high grade, but a lovely solid book.

While I don't know for sure, I strongly suspect I just got a shout out.

Great stuff Ed, you're killing it. I missed out in that auction too (guessing it was the same one), but you always know where to start selling undercopies!

I've ignored a few folks. The most popular criteria are: - posting every single freaking thought that crosses the poster's mind (yeah, him ) - posting 10 copies of visually identical comics in 'this week in your collection' (yeah, him, ) - posting multiple consecutive posts in the same thread because you have to respond separately to everyone and can't let ANYTHING go (yeah, him ) - something that offends me (if I can't see it I won't be tempted to argue with it)

Given that I have about everything else with Uncle Scrooge, I'd almost have to +1 this. Another contender would be Weird Fantasy #14(2) - the only EC sci-fi book I don't own.

Yeah, that's going to hurt.

Hmm, must get around to the promised Pogo Possum essay... But until then, here are some pretty books as a distraction. These days the combination of exchange rate, eBay policy and postage costs is a real killer for us "internationals". Long gone are the early days of my collecting when I could get a $50 book on eBay shipped to me for under $10. These days the shipping is US$28 and up, which turns into A$40 - ouch. Slabs are worse, usually US$40 or more = A$60 or so. As a result, I've turned to Heritage for most buys. I can accumulate wins and get them shipped in one package, which helps a lot. But there's a stupid catch - if any individual invoice is over $250, it has to go FedEx or UPS, which costs $100 or so. Then, just for extra and giggles, if the package is over A$1000 (about US$713 today) I get hit with 10% import duty + a $50 processing fee. Joy... So... I can now buy anything from Heritage under $250, and add them together until I get near the limit for Australian Customs. Man, it's a balancing act. But to show it can be done, here's what will be in my next 'care package', total value US$683 Impact #1-5 (average 5.0 - will be interesting to see how they look) Planets #47 and 50 WDC&S #9 (single digit duck - oh yeah baby!)

1329 does in fact appear in the indicia in this copy - looks like we have a winner. Your comment above makes me wonder if there is more than one version of this issue. But the scan here would certainly explain the slabbed #1329

This one deserves a place here. Vacation Time by Barks from the Dell Giant Vacation Parade #1

Please scan the indicia if you don't mind. Well, this is embarrassing. I had an absolute beater of a copy I got in a lot, but it's nowhere to be found. I suspect it was given away to visiting kids at some stage. Sorry about that...

The problem with #6 is that it was produced with larger than usual overhangs, so they are usually trashed and high grade copies are scarce. The census shows 2 x 8.0, 1 x 7.0 and 2 x 6.5 in blue (and one of the 6.5s has been deslabbed by me). In comparison there are 19 x #5 and 26 x #7 in 8.0 or higher. As Yellow Kid surmised, in a bound volume with the edges trimmed, it should be pretty good.

OK, I'll scan it when I get home tonight.

Is this the candidate 'missing' Gyro? If so, I have a raw one and can scan the indicia if that helps.

The breadth of your collection never fails to impress, BBG.

So... as you know, I'm trying to accumulate Dell WDC&S 1 - 100. At the back of my mind was the question "what about the rest of the Dell WDC&S"? I'd mostly ignored that until now (though I have a few), but then the answer came to me. The first issue of WDC&S in Australia had the cover and some contents of Dell's #69, so they are offset by about five and a half years. (Not quite perfectly offset, as the Australian series doesn't match 69, 70, 71... perfectly, but near enough). So I thought I'd go back to my roots with Australian copies of Comics & Stories for the higher Dell numbers. Here's our #190, which has the cover of Dell #256. Best of all, I don't have to buy these in US$. And I do like the old Australian isues, especially the pre-decimal currency ones like this one shilling ( 1/- ) cover price issue. Edit: just noticed this was my 3,000th post.

Great work there Jon. You have such a good eye for cool books.

Thanks Richard. Yes, I'd love a #62. I still kick myself that I didn't buy ciroac's fine copy when he offered it on the boards and the Australian dollar was trading 40% higher than it is today. As a lifelong Uncle Scrooge fan, I reckon I also need FC #178, though that one would be much more attractive if Scrooge was on the cover (or even if the cover was better).

I now officially have all the Barks Four Colors except the hard/expensive/desirable ones. I know about the CT on the #108 (and don't care)

And why would you want 30 copies of a low demand book? You need to find one buyer for the JLA, and you only have to ship once. Time is money when you're in business. If you made this trade, you'd have less liquid assets, and more overheads. So "just say no".

That's where the problem lies if I don't trade I either have to sell for a loss or wait till it reaches a price where I can make a profit on it. But if you trade, you end up with more comics that still aren't money. And there's at least an even chance that the new ones could be exchanged for less money than the old ones. So stop trading. No, really, stop it. Money can be exchanged for goods and services. Try it, you might even like it.

Some great (by which I mean low*) duck prices in today's Heritage auction. I got this beauty: *apologies if you were the consigner